The present invention is directed to a composite material adapted to dissipate and absorb vibrational energy waves while maintaining favorable stiffness and weight characteristics.
Noise control solutions are becoming increasing critical in a vast array of fields including commercial and industrial equipment, consumer electronics, transportation, as well as countless other specialty areas. These applications require an efficient and economical sound insulating material with the ability to be adapted to fill a wide variety of damping requirements.
Viscoelastic materials are typically used in sound damping applications to provide hysteretic energy dissipation, meaning damping provided by the yielding or straining of the molecules of the material. These materials offer somewhat limited damping efficiency as a result of providing very few avenues for energy dissipation and absorption. Viscoelastic materials that do possess acceptable levels of energy dissipation do so at the expense of increased material thickness and further, fail to provide the structural stiffness required in many of today's applications. In contrast, conventional composite materials have high stiffness-to-weight ratios however they generally exhibit very poor damping characteristics.
Clearly what is needed is a material capable of providing substantially increased damping efficiency while maintaining minimal material thickness and favorable stiffness and weight characteristics.